The present invention relates to automatic print verification. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for automatically verifying quality of motion picture prints
Throughout the years, movie makers have often tried to tell stories involving make-believe creatures, far away places, and fantastic things. To do so, they have often relied on animation techniques to bring the make-believe to “life.” Two of the major paths in animation have traditionally included, drawing-based animation techniques and stop motion animation techniques.
Drawing-based animation techniques were refined in the twentieth century, by movie makers such as Walt Disney and used in movies such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) and “Fantasia” (1940). This animation technique typically required artists to hand-draw (or paint) animated images onto a transparent media or cells. After painting, each cell would then be captured or recorded onto film as one or more frames in a movie.
Stop motion-based animation techniques typically required the construction of miniature sets, props, and characters. The filmmakers would construct the sets, add props, and position the miniature characters in a pose. After the animator was happy with how everything was arranged, one or more frames of film would be photographed with that specific arrangement. Stop motion animation techniques were developed by movie makers such as Willis O'Brien for movies such as “King Kong” (1933). Subsequently, these techniques were refined by animators such as Ray Harryhausen for movies including “Mighty Joe Young” (1948) and Clash Of The Titans (1981).
With the wide-spread availability of computers in the later part of the twentieth century, animators began to rely upon computers to assist in the animation process. This included using computers to facilitate drawing-based animation, for example, by painting images, by generating in-between images (“tweening”), and the like. This also included using computers to augment stop motion animation techniques. For example, physical models could be represented by virtual models in computer memory, and manipulated.
One of the pioneering companies in the computer-aided animation (CA) industry was Pixar. Pixar is more widely known as Pixar Animation Studios, the creators of animated features such as “Toy Story” (1995) and “Toy Story 2” (1999), “A Bugs Life” (1998), “Monsters, Inc.” (2001), “Finding Nemo” (2003), “The Incredibles” (2004), “Cars” (2006) and others. In addition to creating animated features, Pixar developed computing platforms specially designed for CA, and CA software now known as RenderMan®. RenderMan® was well received in the animation industry and recognized with two Academy Awards®. The RenderMan® software included a “rendering engine” that “rendered” or converted geometric and/or mathematical descriptions of objects into a two dimensional image.
For typical feature-length animated features, typically 125,000 to 175,000 frames of animated images are rendered. These rendered images are then transferred onto film stock to create a “release print” that are projected to an audience. However, at Pixar, before providing prints to a theater, the inventors have typically manually reviewed the “release print” candidates to guarantee a high quality level of release prints that are delivered to theaters.
Typically, the quality control process includes identification and reporting of film printing anomalies, film processing anomalies, image characteristics that exceed a threshold, and the like. These types of anomalies may be a result of dirt/hair/or scratches on the media, problems with the image recorder (e.g. laser recorder) such as data overflows or data underflows, improper or inconsistent exposure of the media, improper or inconsistent development parameters (e.g. old chemicals/new chemicals, changed development recipes), and the like.
A typically process used by the inventors has included observing a projected print candidate in real-time, and looking for anomalies. A problem recognized by the inventors is that the review of the film media is very time consuming, capital intensive, and burdensome for reviewing personnel. In practice, the inventors have budgeted use of a theater, a projector, a projectionist, and a number (e.g. three) of reviewers 60 minutes for review and reporting of two 20 minute film reels. Thus, for quality control review of a single feature-length film of six 20 minute reels, approximately 13.5 man hours are consumed. This is very burdensome for a company or organization when there are any significant number of film candidates (e.g. 60+).
Another problem recognized by the inventors is that due to human nature, different reviewers of the print candidate may identify different anomalies, and that each reviewer may have different standards of what they consider an anomaly. Additionally, because reviewers may be fatigued or have different levels of fatigue, earlier approved release prints may have lower levels of visual anomalies than later approved release prints. As a result, a problem recognized by the inventors is that the root causes of identified anomalies may be difficult when there are different reviewers. Because of this, if the root causes (e.g. old chemicals, bad film stock, scratched internegative) of the anomalies are not identified earlier in the film duplication process, thus leading to wasted film and duplication time. In addition, this may also lead to wasted reviewing time. For example, after reviewing a large batch (e.g. ten) of print candidates only a few prints releases (e.g. two) may be identified.
In light of the above, what is desired are more efficient ways for ensuring quality of prints, without the drawbacks described above.